1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical connector, an optical transmission device and an assembly method for an optical transmission device, especially to an optical connector, an optical transmission device and an assembly method capable of nondestructive detachment.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, as the demand for data throughput and transmission speed rises day by day, the traditional way in using copper cables as the data transmission medium is gradually out of date; therefore fiber transmission has taken the place of copper transmission and becomes the major medium for high speed transmission. However, compared with copper transmission, fiber transmission asks for extremely high precision in the alignment of assembly. If some influence such as an external force to a certain degree, user's improper operation or a great amount of insertion/desertion actions happens, the transmission end, relay end or reception end of fiber transmission will be out of normal operation. In order to tackle the above-mentioned problems for a short-distance wired connection such as the indoor connection or the connection between devices, a known solution is to replace the whole fiber transmission line and the transceiver components at the terminals of the fiber transmission line. But if the wire layout is invisible or hard to be detached and reinstalled, the said replacement will be a tough job and lead to a significant cost. Seeing that the overall replacement solution is problematic, another known solution simplifies the detachment and reinstallation of the fiber transmission line and the transceiver components thereof by using a connector. One type of the connector is a multi-fiber push-on/push-off connector (MPO connector). Unfortunately, MPO connector is an independent adaptor; although it is operable to carry out the optical coupling between two fiber transmission lines, it can't be integrated with the terminals of the fiber transmission lines; besides, it is complicated in its structure and components and therefore only applicable to some specific optical transmission products, which thereby leads to a higher cost; moreover, it also leaves users the concern of insertion loss and reflection loss. Another type of said connector is a mechanically transferable connector (MT connector) which allows two fiber transmission lines to couple with each other by the corresponding structure design of the terminals of the two fiber transmission lines. However, MT connector needs a pinch clamp to immobilize the two transmission lines. For some applications requiring a lot of detachment and reinstallation actions, the design with the pinch clamp is annoying and its volume consumes much space; accordingly, this solution will also cause a lot of inconvenience in wiring working.
People who are interested in the prior arts may refer to the following document: “Naoko Shimoji, Jun Yamakawa and Masato Shiino: “Development of Mini-MPO Connector”, Furukawa Review, No. 18, 1999.”.